During an appearance on conservative network Newsmax, far-right podcast host Mark Kaye claimed Donald Trump’s trips to the golf course are part of a well-thought-out diplomatic strategy.

While talking about the global fear Trump has whipped up with his tariffs and threats of more tariffs, Kaye said liberal media outlets were “complaining that President Donald Trump was casually playing golf over the weekend.”

Related

Lara Trump claims Donald Trump never takes a day off despite all his days golfing
The president’s frequent golf trips are costing taxpayers a lot of money.

“Well, when you’re in the middle of a negotiation, you don’t want people to see you stressed out,” he argued. “You don’t want them thinking that you’ve made a mistake.”

Insights for the LGBTQ+ community

Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

“So Donald Trump goes, ‘Here’s the deal. It’s Liberation Day. You’re all getting reciprocal tariffs. I’m going to go hit the links.’ And now all of the other countries realize that Donald Trump is not losing sleep over this, and that they are going to be losing a large portion of their GDP.”

He then made an outlandish claim regarding Trump’s popularity.

“So yes, whenever Donald Trump makes a move, whether it’s good or bad for the economy, the other networks, the Democrats, the mainstream media or the legacy media, they are going to react negatively because they are trying their best to make Donald Trump – one of the most popular presidents in the entire history of our country – look bad and make their party – one of the most unpopular in the history of this country – look not as bad as they actually are.”

In March, CNN polling analyst Harry Enten boiled down Trump’s approval ratings with the American people to one word: “awful.”

He explained that at this point in his presidency, Trump has a plus-one net approval rating and that the only president in history who has had a worse number than that at this juncture is Trump himself during his first term when he was polling at minus-eight.

“He’s making gains, but he’s doing worse than everybody else. The average president at this point, get this, plus 27 points on their net approval rating. Donald Trump is doing historically awful. The only person he beats is, again, himself from term number one.”

Enten also said Trump is polling almost 20 points less than the average president on the economy, which his colleague reminded viewers was the issue “he was most elected to fix, and he said he would do it on day one.”

“He beat himself on overall, but on the economy, he can’t even beat himself,” Enten said. “Again, this is historically the worst going back in polling at this point in a presidency, the net approval rating on the economy. He’s right now at minus four points. In term number one, he was at plus-eight points. Historically, the average is plus 15 points.”

“On net approval rating, he is historically doing awful, awful, awful, weak, weak, weak – and on the issue on which he was elected to, of course, fix, he is doing historically awful. This is not good. If this number holds, you can guarantee his overall approval rating will go down, and it could take his entire presidency with him.”

Enten predicted that tariffs will only make Trump more unpopular, as a majority of Americans oppose them.

Also in March, HuffPost published a report that Trump’s continued trips to Florida to golf had already cost American taxpayers more than $18 million just 48 days into his second term. The analysis found that this term, the president is on track to cost Americans more than the $151.5 million he spent golfing during his first term.

The report said Trump had golfed 13 days out of his then 48 in office, which is about 27% of his time as president.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.